Theses of the article "Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry," published in *Vperyod*, No. 42 (March 30), 1905. (Works, Vol. VII, pp. 196-202).

## MORE ON THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
[April 1905]

**1.** Clarity is needed in revolutionary aims. The obscuring of these was begun by Martyanov before January 9. Not exaggeration of individual aspects of the movement (always possible), but a drawing back.

**2.** The formulation of the question: (1) Is participation by Social Democracy in a provisional government permissible? Yes (*Vperyod*), No (*Iskra*). (2) Is participation by Social Democracy together with revolutionary democracy in the government of a revolutionary democratic dictatorship permissible? Yes (*Vperyod*), No (*Iskra*).

"Jaurèsism" = "Jacobinism" (tantum mutatus ab illo!). Seriousness of the question.

**3.** The arguments of *Iskra*: it sanctifies bourgeois order: police, prisons, credit, unemployment, etc. (1) "To defile the lips by combining the words 'hurrah!' and government." [A phrase, vulgar Jaurèsism.] To realize the program tactically. The consciousness of the bourgeoisie will not permit it (contra Baku), from the side it is more convenient to push. 

**4.** Its errors: misunderstanding of the military conditions of the task and of the moment. Kurz = struggle for a republic. For or against? Do you "sanctify" it? Undialectical understanding of the "sanctification" of bourgeois order, prisons, army, etc. Ich stimme rückwarts, nicht vorwarts zu...

MORE ON THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

"Together to strike" — and together to kill? To finish? To repulse? The turns of struggle: The run of the true love is never smooth...

"Jaurèsism": they learned it but did not understand it. They memorized it but did not think it through. They grasped the letter but not the meaning. A principle? (Compare Paris, 1900.)

Program minimum and maximum. Is the proletariat sober?

**5.** The actual danger: the loss of the independent organization and independent struggle of the proletariat. This is unconditional. Will this participation in the provisional government hinder it? Freedom of unions? Means of agitation? The press? The convenience of withdrawal in known circumstances?

(2) The distinction between (a) a bourgeois revolutionary provisional government and (b) a revolutionary dictatorship (being created by *Iskra*) is scholasticism. a = juridical form, b = class essence. On the one hand, a is impossible without b. On the other hand, b is inevitably temporary (either transition to bourgeois dictatorship, to the defeat of the proletariat, or to socialist dictatorship).

Tactical caution. Prepare, consolidate the ranks, not losschlagen gedankenlos (rash adventurism), not "more revolutionary than everyone"...

Is there a revolutionary democracy? Of course, yes (L. Martov is right contra Trotsky and Parvus and Trotsky). Martov is wrong even to believe Trotsky that revolutionary democracy merely "grows up" while the proletariat grows. Rather vice versa (the legal press, broad intelligentsia, its links with the peasantry, etc., will be restored sehr bald).

"Abnormal people" (Frankfurter Zeitung). Baku. All legal liberals who are only honest = ready revolutionary democrats, all the influence of honest writers, conscientious lawyers, decent teachers, doctors, and so forth and so on.

Bessere Einsicht of *Iskra*: Revolution in Permanenz — that is precisely the revolutionary dictatorship.

"More revolutionary than everyone." And the Socialist-Revolutionaries? The struggle of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. It is quite possible that the Social Democrats will have to withdraw from the revolutionary government of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and stand in opposition to "revolutionary adventurism," to suffer their Abwirtschaften. (The inevitability of the coloring of revolutionary democrats as Socialist-Revolutionaries, taking Socialist-Revolutionaries as the type.) Here one cannot tie one's own hands in any case. The organization and discipline of the proletariat, the "adventurism" and inconsistency of revolutionary intelligentsia and revolutionary petty bourgeoisie...